First incubation coming soon, I am nervous! :D

[VlkStinu]

Hi everyone! So the time for my first incubation is drawing near - I got the last two eggs to collect, one tomorrow and one on Friday and that's when I will set the eggs in the incubator and get the show on the road. I am really excited and also nervous, hoping I will get everything right... Still gotta read up on some incubation tips to make sure I remember everything. Fortunately, I got a pretty smart incubator with every possible sensor, a system that alerts me if something goes off with the humidity/temperature levels, in-built candling LEDs, an automatic turner, a day counter... So I am well prepared I would say. I did my best with the eggs storage, so hopefully, that will show in the hatch rate! In any case, just wanted to share my excitement and hopefully, in a couple of weeks, I will have other exciting news to share.

 

[BelovedBirds]

Hi everyone! So the time for my first incubation is drawing near - I got the last two eggs to collect, one tomorrow and one on Friday and that's when I will set the eggs in the incubator and get the show on the road. I am really excited and also nervous, hoping I will get everything right... Still gotta read up on some incubation tips to make sure I remember everything. Fortunately, I got a pretty smart incubator with every possible sensor, a system that alerts me if something goes off with the humidity/temperature levels, in-built candling LEDs, an automatic turner, a day counter... So I am well prepared I would say. I did my best with the eggs storage, so hopefully, that will show in the hatch rate! In any case, just wanted to share my excitement and hopefully, in a couple of weeks, I will have other exciting news to share.

Good luck!!
Do you have a calibrated thermometer ready to go? That's a common mistake, one that I made

 

[VlkStinu]

Good luck!!
Do you have a calibrated thermometer ready to go? That's a common mistake, one that I made

Oh right, calibrated thermometer, darn... I don't have that - there is one that is built in the incubator, but whether it is calibrated or not, I don't know. :/ And I am not sure how to calibrate it as I don't have a manual for the incubator (it was second-hand - and who knows if it's even possible?). I do however have an outdoor wireless sensor for my weather station, that is measuring temperature. It's a small box, that came with an attachable wired temperature probe that I can connect to it and place the end part into the incubator. But looking at the manual, there is no way to calibrate it either.

 

[VlkStinu]

Oh, so I did find a manual online for my incubator and it is indeed possible to calibrate the thermometer, which is great. I found this guide here on BYC that covers how to calibrate the thermometer or find out how accurate it is - which I can do exactly with the wired probe I mentioned. I just find the part with melted ice cubes slightly confusing - how do I know when exactly will be the right time to measure the temperature in it? Half ice, half water, that seems like a bit subjective parameter.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/the-beginners-guide-to-incubation.73350/

 

[Ridgerunner]

It sounds like you have a built-in thermometer. What you want to do is to see how closely that is reading to the correct temperature. Do you have an old-fashioned medical thermometer, the one where you stick it in your mouth, under your arm, or up something else for babies? Those should already be calibrated and read true, plus they read in incubation range, not at freezing or boiling. Anymore those can be hard to find but maybe check with your mother or grandmother. If you get your incubator up to heat and them put that thermometer in you can compare readings. If your incubator thermometer is reading 37 C and your medical thermometer is reading 36 C you know the incubator is reading 1 degree high so you mentally make the correction. Some thermometers are adjustable, some are not. You don't have to adjust it so it is reading correctly, you have to know what the reading you are seeing really means.

If your incubator is a forced air (has a fan) then it should not matter where in the incubator you take the measurement but if it is a still air (no fan) the elevation you take the temperature is very important. Warm air rises so in a still air incubator the temperature up high can be quite a bit warmer than down low.

I don't know how things work in the Czech Republic. In the United States each state has what we call the extension service, tied into the state land grant university system to help people and businesses with agriculture and manufacturing. I can take a thermometer or a pressure canner in to them to get it calibrated. It's complicated and unnecessary to get into how that works here but a local university may calibrate a thermometer for you, a pharmacist may be able to help, or perhaps you could call a local office of your agricultural ministry to ask where to get a thermometer calibrated.

You have to be able to adjust the temperature of your incubator but without the operating manual how to do that may not be obvious. You might try searching online for that make and model, many manufacturers post those manuals online. Occasionally someone selling that make and model online has pictures that actually show those instructions where you can read them. Not often but I have seen that. You may be able to contact the manufacturer and ask them, often by e-mail. Or you can start a thread on this forum with the make and model in the title and ask if anyone here can help, if it is necessary to adjust it. If it has been used before there is a reasonable chance it is already calibrated.

I see you posted while I was typing. I'll leave it as it was but congratulations on finding that manual.

 

[VlkStinu]

It sounds like you have a built-in thermometer. What you want to do is to see how closely that is reading to the correct temperature. Do you have an old-fashioned medical thermometer, the one where you stick it in your mouth, under your arm, or up something else for babies? Those should already be calibrated and read true, plus they read in incubation range, not at freezing or boiling. Anymore those can be hard to find but maybe check with your mother or grandmother. If you get your incubator up to heat and them put that thermometer in you can compare readings. If your incubator thermometer is reading 37 C and your medical thermometer is reading 36 C you know the incubator is reading 1 degree high so you mentally make the correction. Some thermometers are adjustable, some are not. You don't have to adjust it so it is reading correctly, you have to know what the reading you are seeing really means.

If your incubator is a forced air (has a fan) then it should not matter where in the incubator you take the measurement but if it is a still air (no fan) the elevation you take the temperature is very important. Warm air rises so in a still air incubator the temperature up high can be quite a bit warmer than down low.

I don't know how things work in the Czech Republic. In the United States each state has what we call the extension service, tied into the state land grant university system to help people and businesses with agriculture and manufacturing. I can take a thermometer or a pressure canner in to them to get it calibrated. It's complicated and unnecessary to get into how that works here but a local university may calibrate a thermometer for you, a pharmacist may be able to help, or perhaps you could call a local office of your agricultural ministry to ask where to get a thermometer calibrated.

You have to be able to adjust the temperature of your incubator but without the operating manual how to do that may not be obvious. You might try searching online for that make and model, many manufacturers post those manuals online. Occasionally someone selling that make and model online has pictures that actually show those instructions where you can read them. Not often but I have seen that. You may be able to contact the manufacturer and ask them, often by e-mail. Or you can start a thread on this forum with the make and model in the title and ask if anyone here can help, if it is necessary to adjust it. If it has been used before there is a reasonable chance it is already calibrated.

I see you posted while I was typing. I'll leave it as it was but congratulations on finding that manual.

Thank you for taking the time to post this reply, I really appreciate it! I live in a somewhat remote place in a small village, so my options are a bit limited (though I could probably ask my neighbor if he doesn't have this old-fashioned thermometer - they have kids, so the chances are he will have it). I think my best option is to try to see how accurate is the digital probe I have and then calibrate the in-built thermometer in the incubator with it if needed. What do you think? I am just not sure about when exactly to take the measurement of those melted ice cubes to know I really have an accurate reading.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I understand your dilemma. When the temperature stops dropping they should have reached freezing. When the ice cubes are real slow to melt it should be at freezing. So try it a few minutes apart and you are there when the reading doesn't change.

 

[VlkStinu]

I understand your dilemma. When the temperature stops dropping they should have reached freezing. When the ice cubes are real slow to melt it should be at freezing. So try it a few minutes apart and you are there when the reading doesn't change.

Just to make sure - so I will put a bunch of cubes in the glass, wait for them to partially melt, and then stick the probe in, wait for the temperature to match the water, and then if it stays on the same value for several minutes, I should be at the 0°C (32F) value - I mean whatever the probe will show, that will be its 0°C and I will calculate it from there if it will show something else.

 

[VlkStinu]

Alright, so I did the accuracy test of the probe today! I was a bit worried I might not get it right because the temperature kept changing all the time, but I think it was probably due to the probe being on the bottom and side of the glass where the ice was melting - it started at 0,4 and then rose progressively, with the temperatures staying no longer than 2-3 minutes, which seemed inconclusive. At some point, I added more ice and moved the probe inside the ice, in the middle of the glass, and waited. At some point, the temp got back to 0,4 and, to my relief, stayed there for at least 25 minutes, almost half an hour, before starting to rise again. It never went lower than 0,4, so I think I can draw a bulletproof conclusion from this that 0,4 is the probe's 0°C. I will let the probe go to room temp and soon will try to get a reading from inside the incubator. If the incubator's thermometer is calibrated, I should see 37,9 on the probe then - if that won't be the case, I will calibrate it accordingly.

 

[VlkStinu]

Wow, so the calibrating turned into a bit of a nightmare haha. I just couldn't get the incubator to match with the external probe. The temperatures were all over the place (possibly also due to the impossibility of closing the lid of the incubator entirely, also maybe the water and eggs not being inside) and there was a sort of latency problem, where the probe readings were being updated roughly every minute, which made the whole thing more difficult. I probably spent around an hour and a half of hopelessness going back and forth and I just gave up in the end. I contacted my neighbor who has an old school thermometer filled with gallium - I assume these are calibrated by default, with the substance behaving the same way and the meter being physically painted on the thing... So I will repeat the calibration tomorrow with this thermometer and hopefully, I will manage to set it right. It's all a bit last minute, but it will hopefully be all right.